Kofi Annan Short Quotes

25 Sourced Quotes

View all Kofi Annan Quotes
Sovereignty implies responsibility, not just power.

Kofi Annan
You have said that your first priority is the eradication of extreme poverty.

Kofi Annan
There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.

Kofi Annan
Globalization is a fact of life. But I believe we have underestimated its fragility.

Kofi Annan
In today's world, the security of every one of us is linked to that of everyone else.

Kofi Annan
We don't need any more promises. We need to start keeping the promises we already made.

Kofi Annan
For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.

Kofi Annan
A genocide begins with the killing of one man—not for what he has done, but because of who he is.

Kofi Annan
You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done.

Kofi Annan
A United Nations that will not stand up for human rights is a United Nations that cannot stand up for itself.

Kofi Annan
Climate change does not respect national borders. We are all in the same boat; a hole at one end will sink us all.

Kofi Annan
Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

Kofi Annan
We have to choose between a global market driven only by calculations of short-term profit, and one which has a human face.

Kofi Annan
Thank you, Senator [Hagel] for that wonderful introduction. It is a great honour to be introduced by such a distinguished legislator.

Kofi Annan
No government has the right to hide behind national sovereignty in order to violate the human rights or fundamental freedoms of its peoples.

Kofi Annan
I arrived there straight from Africa' - and I can tell you, Minnesota soon taught me the value of a thick overcoat, a warm scarf and even ear-muffs!

Kofi Annan
We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race. We all share the same basic values.

Kofi Annan
A world where many millions of people endure brutal oppression and extreme misery will never be fully secure, even for its most privileged inhabitants.

Kofi Annan
And thanks to you, Mr Devine, and all your staff, and to the wonderful UNA chapter of Kansas City, for all you have done to make this occasion possible.

Kofi Annan
Most nations have monuments or memorials to war, bronze salutations to heroic battles, archways of triumph. But peace has no parade, no pantheon of victory.

Kofi Annan
He is very calm — very, very calm. Never raises his voice. Well-informed, contrary to the sense outside that he is ill-informed and isolated. And decisive.

Kofi Annan
The international community... allows nearly 3 billion people—almost half of all humanity—to subsist on $2 or less a day in a world of unprecedented wealth.

Kofi Annan
Unless the Security Council is restored to its pre-eminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force, we are on a dangerous path to anarchy.

Kofi Annan
The problem is this. The spread of markets outpaces the ability of societies and their political systems to adjust to them, let alone to guide the course they take

Kofi Annan
More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.

Kofi Annan
Today I want to talk particularly about five lessons I have learnt in the last 10 years, during which I have had the difficult but exhilarating role of Secretary General.

Kofi Annan
The report [by a UN commission on Darfur] demonstrates beyond all doubt that the last two years have been little short of hell on earth for our fellow human beings in Darfur.

Kofi Annan
From this vision of the role of the United Nations in the next century flow three key priorities for the future: eradicating poverty, preventing conflict and promoting democracy.

Kofi Annan
What a pleasure, and a privilege, to be here in Missouri. It is almost a homecoming for me. Nearly half a century ago I was a student about 400 miles north of here, in Minnesota.

Kofi Annan
Let us, above all, be clear that, without a convincing program of debt relief to start the new millennium, our objective of halving world poverty by 2015 will be only a pipe dream.

Kofi Annan